A new examination of previously published affidavits from the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)—the New Zealand equivalent of the National Security Agency (NSA)—appears to suggest that the GCSB used the “Five Eyes” international surveillance network to capture the communications of Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload.

The new analysis was posted by New Zealand journalist Keith Ng in a Thursday blog post. If the link proves to be true, it would seem that the NSA’s vast international surveillance capability can be turned against individuals unrelated to the NSA’s stated mission to aid military, counterintelligence, or counterterrorism objectives.

Kim Dotcom has been charged in the United States with copyright infringement rather than terrorism or any other violent crime. The German-born entrepreneur is currently fighting extradition from New Zealand to the United States. Separately, he has launched a civil suit in New Zealand against the GCSB for what the New Zealand government has already admitted was unlawful surveillance.

REL TO NZL, FVEY

On Page 21 of the GCSB’s Affadavit of Disclosure (PDF), in an internal e-mail dated February 17, 2012, the document is marked: "TOP SECRET//COMINT//REL TO NZL, FVEY."

The last section of that classification (REL TO NZL, FVEY)—“Relevant to New Zealand, Five Eyes”—refers to the vast intelligence and data sharing program between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, known as “Five Eyes.” Given new disclosures about the capabilities of PRISM and XKeyscore as a result of the documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, a close examination of this affidavit seems to suggest that the Five Eyes infrastructure was used in Dotcom’s case. (In a slide published last month by The Guardian, XKeyscore is clearly shown to have a presence in New Zealand.)

The affadavit also provides a redacted list of “selectors” for Kim Dotcom, his wife Monica Dotcom, and Bram Van Der Kolk, one of Dotcom’s co-defendants.

“We intercepted [REDACTED] from the first two selectors on the list," the document states. "Obviously only a small fraction of them were used in the reports that were generated. We had no [REDACTED] collection on Dotcom, and I’m advised we saw a little [REDACTED] none of which was used in reporting.”

“All Five Eyes partners have access [to the NSA's systems], including GCSB,” Dotcom told Ars. “GCSB doesn’t even operate their own spy cloud. Everything goes into the US-based spy cloud. Including all the surveillance they have done on me. They typed in the selector and got access to everything the Five Eyes spy cloud had on me. Then the GCSB started real-time surveillance of all my communications, IP, mobile, etc. and was feeding that into the spy cloud.”

Neither the GCSB nor a spokesperson for the Embassy of New Zealand in the United States immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment. In June 2013, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key evaded answering whether the GCSB uses or has access to the NSA’s PRISM system.

"I can't tell you how the United States gather all of their information, what techniques they use, I just simply don't know,” Key told TV3’s Firstline. “But if the question is do we use the United States or one of our other partners to circumvent New Zealand law then the answer is categorically no. We do exchange—and it's well known—information with our partners. We do do that. How they gather that information and whether they use techniques or systems like PRISM, I can't comment on that.''

"What was done was illegal"

As we reported in March 2013, a New Zealand appeals court ruled (PDF) that Kim Dotcom has the right to sue the government of New Zealand for illegal surveillance. As we reported further last year, the NZ government admitted after the fact that Dotcom should not have been subjected to government surveillance due to his having obtained permanent resident status.

According to new documents acquired earlier this year by a New Zealand TV channel, the GCSB already had information as of December 16, 2011 (before the January 2012 raid) showing that Dotcom was a permanent resident of New Zealand and that the agency knew Dotcom should not have been targeted at all. Interestingly, the documents also show Dotcom’s government code name: “Billy Big Steps.”

Still, Ira Rothken, Dotcom’s California-based attorney, seemed to be a bit more cautious about drawing any new implications from the NZ affidavit.

“We’re in the process of litigating a civil case that implicates the New Zealand government for their illegal spying,” he told Ars. “At this point, while we have a healthy appreciation for whatever informal analysis is being done, our goal in this case is to actually get the information directly from New Zealand government sources. I don’t want to prejudge the very thing that we’re litigating now.”

Still, Rothken seemed to indicate that it was within the realm of possibility that Five Eyes was turned against Dotcom illegally.

“I think it’s axiomatic that New Zealand has access to the Five Eyes infrastructure because it’s a member of Five Eyes and it has network points in New Zealand, including a large installation in New Zealand,” he added. “I think that that’s common knowledge. We know that the spy machinery was misused because what was done was illegal. The interesting thing about this case is that it shows how not having sufficient checks and balances against the spy machinery can come back to hurt and impact the rights of innocent residents. Here, the Prime Minister has already apologized and admitted that what happened was illegal. We are litigating for what damages and remedies should be provided.”

Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that it wasn’t clear how much New Zealand authorities obtained via the NSA.

“It would all be dependent on New Zealand law,” he told Ars. “There’s nothing in here that looks like a slam dunk. It doesn't seem like it’s outside the realm of possibility, but if everything is based on a single classification, it seems possible.”

Meanwhile, NZ expands GCSB spying domestically

At the time of the surveillance against Dotcom, the GCSB was only allowed to engage in surveillance of non-resident foreigners. However, earlier this week, the New Zealand parliament voted 61-59 to expand the GCSB’s powers to encompass citizens and legal residents.

"This is not, and never will be, about wholesale spying on New Zealanders," Prime Minister John Key told parliament on Thursday. "There are threats our government needs to protect New Zealanders from. Those threats are real and ever-present, and we underestimate them at our peril."

I thought all this spying was to catch terrorists. I never in a million years would have expected it to be used for anything else, especially for a special interest that has Congress and the Vice President in its pocket. We can trust the government to keep its word, right?

I no longer find anything that the NSA does to be surprising anymore. It's now moved into the realm of feeling mostly sad that our own government has run amok behind our backs, armed with smoke and mirrors.

It's one thing for Americans to be targeted by their own institutions but other nations have the absolute right to protect their citizens and their sovereignty. When they fail to do so or use other nations institutions it is a failure of democracy and human rights

I thought all this spying was to catch terrorists. I never in a million years would have expected it to be used for anything else, especially for a special interest that has Congress and the Vice President in its pocket. We can trust the government to keep its word, right?

Well, copyright infringement is clearly terrorism. After all, hasn't the content industry told us repeatedly that infringement costs us hundreds of millions of jobs and tens of trillions of dollars annually? That if we don't put the full resources of our federal government into fighting it, we'll all be living in tents in the park and eating grass and leaves within weeks?

I got a letter from the now former opposition party leader (unrelated leadership change) stating categorically that should labour get in they will do a conplete review of all of our suviellence agencies and thier roles and the complexity of it all inculding privacy concerns.

I hope to god (dispite having no faith one exists) they do get in as this is terrible. Im ashamed to say but we are worse than the US. At least your president is lying about it. Ours got caught and now managed to ram through legislation making making it legal...

And goes on national tv and makes out like the legality of the action is the only issue. Not that its own agency has been disregarding the law for ten years. Not that maybe we should reconsider joining the states in this General Alexander cyber war on the entire world and its citizenry

"This is not, and never will be, about wholesale spying on New Zealanders," Prime Minister John Key told parliament on Thursday. "There are threats our government needs to protect New Zealanders from. Those threats are real and ever-present, and we underestimate them at our peril."

it's about the the government having the ability bring the hammer down on anyone they don't like.

Truth really is stranger than fiction. This makes no sense. NZ's Internet and media must already be censored for this to happen. "At the time of the surveillance against Dotcom, the GCSB was only allowed to engage in surveillance of non-resident foreigners. However, earlier this week, the New Zealand parliament voted 61-59 to expand the GCSB’s powers to encompass citizens and legal residents."

Truth really is stranger than fiction. This makes no sense. NZ's Internet and media must already be censored for this to happen. "At the time of the surveillance against Dotcom, the GCSB was only allowed to engage in surveillance of non-resident foreigners. However, earlier this week, the New Zealand parliament voted 61-59 to expand the GCSB’s powers to encompass citizens and legal residents."

Nope no censorship. Just turns out the only reason we've been able to laugh at Americans for their inability to stop their government doing crazy things like this because they havent tried till now. Most here are sheeple^2 it seems. Ready to accept 'nothing to hide nothing to fear'

"The last section of that classification (REL TO NZL, FVEY)—“Relevant to New Zealand, Five Eyes”—refers to the vast intelligence and data sharing program between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, known as “Five Eyes.”

I thought all this spying was to catch terrorists. I never in a million years would have expected it to be used for anything else, especially for a special interest that has Congress and the Vice President in its pocket. We can trust the government to keep its word, right?

They're passing tips to the DEA too, probably the FBI and the deputy in Mayberry as well. Nobody anywhere is out of their reach.

And here people were worried about a nanny state. Instead, at least 3 world governments are running head long into straight up dictatorships. Or I guess oligopolies.

It'd be nice if we could ram through a law such that any high government official (obviously, your garbage man isn't relevant to this) has to reciprocate with the citizens. That is, any info the government collects on us, they have to publicly release their own equivalent info.

It's one thing for Americans to be targeted by their own institutions but other nations have the absolute right to protect their citizens and their sovereignty. When they fail to do so or use other nations institutions it is a failure of democracy and human rights

I no longer find anything that the NSA does to be surprising anymore. It's now moved into the realm of feeling mostly sad that our own government has run amok behind our backs, armed with smoke and mirrors.

I was thinking the same thing yesterday. I've gone from anger to pretty much depression over the whole thing. I have no faith in my government or the USA anymore. I don't trust anything they say and it's safe to assume that the worst case scenario is true so no matter what else is revealed won't be surprising. they are doing what they want without restriction. Democracy doesn't exist anymore. They haven't come out and said it directly, but we've lost a number of constitutional amendments. some groups may still have to respect them, but what's the point if others don't? it's embarrassing really and I understand why other countries hate us. I want nothing to do with the criminals in charge of this country. I guess that makes me an enemy of the state, or more fashionably, a terrorist. who would have thought that the hope and change promised would mean changing the very foundation of this country, for the worse? I didn't think it was possible to have a president worse than Bush Jr., but Obama is a disgrace and even worse. To hell with all of them.

I thought all this spying was to catch terrorists. I never in a million years would have expected it to be used for anything else, especially for a special interest that has Congress and the Vice President in its pocket. We can trust the government to keep its word, right?

Thinking about it, has any terrorist actually been caught due to these spying programs? Sure, Bin Laden was killed, but if memory serves he or someone related to his actions actually stated that they don't use certain forms of communications precisely because of the spying programs. So standard intel was the actual Given everything that's happening on the premise of a war on terror, one would think someone would proudly show off as a battle victory the capture/death of a terrorist, like they did with Bin Laden. Don't tell me it's so other terrorists don't find out, I'm pretty sure they'll notice if one of their own suddenly goes missing.

However, what I see is that everyone gets spied on everything they do, but somehow a couple of lunatics still managed to detonate a couple of bombs in Boston and had to be (successfully) tracked using traditional mediums.

Our JSOC guys are already killing American citizens and their 16-year-old sons without charge or trial in foreign countries. It won't take much in the way of legal gymnastics to paint foreign copyright violators with the same targeting laser.

If we're actually, no shit using our bazillion-dollar national intelligence apparatus to run down individuals for freaking copyright, how long until we just say, "fuck it, fly a Predator over to his gaudy-ass mansion and light him up."?

These days it doesn't really seem like that much of a stretch, does it?

I got a letter from the now former opposition party leader (unrelated leadership change) stating categorically that should labour get in they will do a conplete review of all of our suviellence agencies and thier roles and the complexity of it all inculding privacy concerns.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but to me, phrases like "we will do a complete review" translate to "we will use this outrage to get elected while insuring we make no concrete promises to do anything".

"This is not, and never will be, about wholesale spying on New Zealanders," Prime Minister John Key told parliament on Thursday. "There are threats our government needs to protect New Zealanders from. Those threats are real and ever-present, and we underestimate them at our peril."

it's about the the government having the ability bring the hammer down on anyone they don't like.

Since when was New Zealand a target for terrorists? It's got to be one of the safest countries in the world.

So NZ also think's it's OK to spy on foreign citizens (as opposed to foreign governments or military).

Oddly I don't see the same outrage over this as to the fact that the Constitutional protections only apply (in theory, clearly not in practice) to US citizens and legal residents.

Face it, it's the same in every country. The US is no different in this regard.

Half yep.

It's perfectly understandable that the a country's legal system doesn't automatically extend its protection to all the people in the world. But this case shows how this limitation can cause trouble. The US can do for NZ what it would be illegal for NZ to do alone; and indeed would be illegal for the US to do if their roles were reversed.

I'm glad that these shatterlings of the British Empire are friendly enough to share intelligence with eachother. But then they should also be friendly enough to protect the rights of each others' citizens in cross border dealings.

I thought all this spying was to catch terrorists. I never in a million years would have expected it to be used for anything else, especially for a special interest that has Congress and the Vice President in its pocket. We can trust the government to keep its word, right?

Thinking about it, has any terrorist actually been caught due to these spying programs? Sure, Bin Laden was killed, but if memory serves he or someone related to his actions actually stated that they don't use certain forms of communications precisely because of the spying programs. So standard intel was the actual Given everything that's happening on the premise of a war on terror, one would think someone would proudly show off as a battle victory the capture/death of a terrorist, like they did with Bin Laden. Don't tell me it's so other terrorists don't find out, I'm pretty sure they'll notice if one of their own suddenly goes missing.

However, what I see is that everyone gets spied on everything they do, but somehow a couple of lunatics still managed to detonate a couple of bombs in Boston and had to be (successfully) tracked using traditional mediums.

Groups that actually think they're against the US typically use encryption or just straight up don't use the internet at all (eg bin laden). These programs aren't aimed at terrorism, it's just an excuse.

I got a letter from the now former opposition party leader (unrelated leadership change) stating categorically that should labour get in they will do a conplete review of all of our suviellence agencies and thier roles and the complexity of it all inculding privacy concerns.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but to me, phrases like "we will do a complete review" translate to "we will use this outrage to get elected while insuring we make no concrete promises to do anything".

Maybe so; but in any case National is paying some kind of political price for misbehaviour. And it's a good thing that such a price exists - no matter what the motiviations of the opposition are.

Thinking about it, has any terrorist actually been caught due to these spying programs? Sure, Bin Laden was killed, but if memory serves he or someone related to his actions actually stated that they don't use certain forms of communications precisely because of the spying programs.

I also don't think it is true:- I don't see the convictions that come with the foiled plots. One can at least suspect that the evidence would be presented to the court. If not, one would risk that the 'terrorist' goes free afterwards.- The NSA has a track record of lying, and has an incentive to lie about this.- One of those fifty is the conviction of Malika El Aroud in Belgium, for organising and setting up a terror network through a Jihadi website. However, she was already in Afghanistan in early september 2001, where her husband killed commander Massoud, two days before 9/11. Considering that she was a known terrorist, I don't see the added value of massive spying. Regular spying with a warrant would have been equally (more) effective, without a massive violation of the rights of honest people.

Since when was New Zealand a target for terrorists? It's got to be one of the safest countries in the world.

We have had a well resourced team of state sponored terrorists bomb and sink a ship in one of our harbours. We then managed to catch them. Two we caught directly, and some others were found, tracked to Norfolk Island and held where the Australians then let them go before we could arrest them.

New Zealand then found itself under enormous trade pressure to release the two we caught and pretend it never happened, and got absolutely zero help or support from any of our allies (specifically the UK and US which many NZers felt were highly hypocritical).

A lot of NZers still remember that lack of support and it is why many regarded the ANZUS treaty as worthless. It fed the anti nuclear movement and really fuelled New Zealand's move away from its allies towards a more neutral position in the 80s.

Things have now come full circle with recent NZ governments keen to ingratiate themselves back with the US and come in from the cold and get free trade agreements by sucking up to the war on terror and the war on copyright infringers.

I got a letter from the now former opposition party leader (unrelated leadership change) stating categorically that should labour get in they will do a conplete review of all of our suviellence agencies and thier roles and the complexity of it all inculding privacy concerns.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but to me, phrases like "we will do a complete review" translate to "we will use this outrage to get elected while insuring we make no concrete promises to do anything".

Maybe so; but in any case National is paying some kind of political price for misbehaviour. And it's a good thing that such a price exists - no matter what the motivations of the opposition are.

I'd also add that I am very skeptical about their claims as well. However the wording in the letter gave me some hope that they actually understand that this is more than just about people wanting to hide things and is more about the core values of a democratic system.

Although I feel the same sentiment toward politicians and their motives the only thing that is going to change this is an active citizenry demanding that politicians keep their word. Apathy toward all politics only plays into the hands of the people pushing this sort of legislation saying "I think they're more worried about snapper". But ultimately it might just be lost to the very fact that many people just do not see the implications and therefore do not care. Alas.